The transhumanists who rule the technocracy want the useless eaters to be lost in drugs, porn and video games/VR. That, or kill you off, democide you. It doesn't seem like rebellion to do what they want.
Also, I can't fathom a worse fate, dying realizing you have never really lived.
That said, this is much the failure of men not providing worthy life experience for boys to become men.
In response to all three of your excellent points.
1. Agreed. And part of the technocrats' reasoning is that people won't care as much about those who are destroyed when they are lost in drugs, porn, video games/VR. Some of it is that they won't see it, and some of it is that they won't be affected by what they do see.
2. Even worse, they may not even realize it (that they never really lived), if they are so far gone in their games. After all, people just fold over and disappear in the games.
3. As a Dad, I can see my kids in the two points that I made above. Yes, it is in large part to our (my wife and my) not providing sufficient life experiences for our kids.
You and your wife should not be too hard on yourselves. The whole thrust of liberal consumerism has been against you. Atomizing the individual and family has made us all easier prey.
We have an 18 year old boy and a 15 year old girl. The boy is extremely thoughtful, probably like the good librarian's students. He will be able to pull himself out of it. (He inspired my Substack, because he does think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. )
It is my daughter that I was thinking of in my comments. She watches Youtube shorts, which go into the brain and bypass all thought. She can't answer the simplest of questions after watching them.
My students are a very mixed bunch in every sense. As with the parable of the sower, one scatters seeds where one may, and hopes they land on productive soil. I have also found that maturity comes to some later than others, and some who were terrors as freshmen and sophomores become quite different at 17 or so. Some figure it out in their twenties, some in prison. Some never do.
When I have a student who is bright but too invested in internet fluff I try to find some more in-depth version of something that has attracted their attention and steer them that way. I have kids who used to spend hours on Star Wars forums reading the Dune series (the physical books), for example. There's a reason it caught their eye; I help it reach their soul, if I can.
Wonderful to see someone swim comfortably in the Classics. Aeneas: he was a survivor—his story is part of our story—confirming what Conrad said of Jim, “He was one of us!”
Amazing piece: real, USEFUL depth with a light touch.
This is such a thoughtful (and spot-on) way of looking at gaming.
It makes so much sense—video games appeal to people (young men in particular) precisely because they offer what is so lacking in their real life: challenging yet achievable goals which result in measurable rewards.
I agree with you that people who enjoy video games are often using skills and energy that could be better spent on 'real-life' pursuits with tangible benefits. It's a shame these things are so addictive—it's not easy to make the switch to slow, difficult work and delayed gratification when the alternative seems so much more fun.
The addiction is the point, I think. It's part of the wider trend I wrote about near the end, rentier capitalism and an entire economy focused on extraction rather than production.
Definitely! And "cultivated leisure" is a great way of putting it—as you point out, it capitalizes on the innate desire for leisure while preventing any positive products that might come from it.
It is, as you say, a method of control, probably 'necessitated' by the modern increase in available free time. Addictive, unproductive hobbies weren't necessary back when people spent their entire lives working. Now, the masses need to be placated somehow...
This is my favorite of your pieces to date, but I can't find the words to say why. I haven't played a video game in over a decade (so GamerGate to me is akin to a footnote in a history textbook), but something about the description of venturing out to encounter friends (rather than just enemies) really resonates.
So since I'm mostly at a loss for words, I'll just say "thanks".
That's pretty much the reason why I write (well that, and the same subversion also destroying books). The notion that friends and allies can exist as well as enemies is the highest of high fantasies.
Excellently put. Videogames aren't bad in of themselves. Shit, I've been playing a lot of Fortnite with my wife and kid, but they should not become a substitute for life, identity, and personality.
There's nothing inherently wrong with drinking alcohol. If one is drinking in moderation with friends, that's probably healthy. If one is drinking alone for hours in the dark, probably not. I'd say you could apply the same standard to video games.
Games have been a cultural artifact close ot being on par with movies and television, and Roger Ebert was entirely wrong when he said they could never be an art form. They also are far less easy to control, especially in an open world model. Whether it's kidnapping a suffregette and feeding her to a bear in RDR2 or being a psychopath in the dialog tree in the Fallout series, it's easy and fun to be transsgressive, and that's part of the fun. Even if you don't decide to not be a psycho, the entire fact you CAN creates the immersion.
This sort of open world gaming is getting quickly sterilized, and often games are more like 20 hour movies than interctive experiences. While this has been around a while, it's going to become more pronounced as gaming companies desperately try to ensure gamers get the "right" views from their story.
Luckily, there's an ongoing massacre in AAA gaming, as the budget of these games have become unwieldy and the companies continuously destroy goodwill with customers from micro-transactions and hostile social media posts. We're probably going to see more niche games and low to mid budget games that break out due to a smaller team of talented devs. You simply can not make a 400 million dollar game built over ten years. It's completely unsustainable. Likely, this will kill woke before activism unless Steam aggressively puts its thumb on the scale to mandate it.
I mostly agree with what you say. My main disagreement is on your pushing of 'personal improvement' and ignoring the potential of gaming for recruitment. It's a bit late in the game to think that learning Greek is going to help in what's coming. Hit the gym. Learn leadership principles. Spread the fire.
This last is where gaming is a godsend for us. It's where all the young men go. Young men that are already part way in our direction, simply by trying to turn off RL society while looking for something challenging. Besides doing this myself for many years now, I see others spreading the word in open chat, in forums, and in podcasts.
It's true that we don't need to waste our time on a hobby like this, but it's also true that we can't afford to abandon the most fertile ground for reaching directionless young men to our enemies. Our enemies control virtually all other aspects of young men's lives, from the "education" system to Hollywood to HR departments. Maybe we shouldn't just give up this one last place we can reach young men simply so we can sequester ourselves in a monastery to an even greater degree than we already are.
"Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance, they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude."
So I hear this a lot, and my response is always, “reach them to what end?” To what goal are we to harness all of this young male energy? What’s the final point, the vision?
Learning Greek isn’t some bonus adjunct to hitting the gym. It’s what you’re training to preserve, or more realistically, to resurrect. It’s our culture that was taken from us and it’s our culture we have to fight to get back. If it comes to pass that things fall apart and have to be rebuilt then where else will we turn for that wisdom, Mario Brothers? Obviously I use Greek here as a shorthand for broader traditional cultural awareness, but you get the point.
As I said, games aren’t inherently bad. But they are a starting point- milk, not solid food. There’s no reason to abandon them but there’s also no reason to park a generation of men there because the liberals and leftists run things.
And to the latter I say, so what? I come from a line of people who preferred to be driven from their burning homes rather than change their beliefs, who crossed an ocean and made farmland out of swamps. Before them were crusaders and legionaries, Germanic tribesmen and Vikings. Everyone on the right runs on and on about warrior this and warrior that but our instinct seems to be to flee from HR ladies like they’re Grendel’s mother.
I quoted Tacitus in my last essay, that same passage. The only reason the Romans gave the Britons togas and baths was because the Xbox and iPhone hadn’t been invented. They took their traditions from them just like our neoliberal colonizers would take ours.
Greek isn’t a luxury item, it’s a birthright. Take it.
"To what goal are we to harness all of this young male energy?"
To teach them who to love, and who to hate. If they are able, they can figure out the rest from that. We have enough philosophers talking on the internet, we don't need more theorists.
One of the best essays I've seen in quite some time, honestly I always kind of considered Gamergate a bit of a failure as it failed to make any substantial changes. But as an awakening event maybe it was a success, one that awakened youths to the reality of what is being done to them.
I think that as more people disconnect from video-games, as men return to faith, to literature and to history (and it is happening), I think we'll see a greater shake-up, a greater number of demonstrations of anger and outrage.
In my view, Gen Y & Z are liable to to follow in the footsteps down the road of those from the Wars of Religions in France, in the 16th century or the generation between 1825 and 1848. They are going to have to if they wish to live, and I think it will happen as the more young men I talk to, the more I see a number of them pulling away from games, and see greater expressions of anger the more the months pass by. Same goes interestingly for women, as I'm seeing some women push for traditional values and ideas in places such as Japan, Africa, France and even Quebec interestingly enough.
Certaine le sont oui, cependant celles en dehors de Montreal ont tendance soit a devenirent séculières ou non. Ayant dit cela, j'en connais une de Montreal qui est pas mal gentille et traditionelle.
Toutefois, je pense qu'avec la chute des croyances séculières, les envahissement des Musulmans et le chute du Canada, le Québec vais falloir changer. RSPP le plus populaire chef dans ce coin, parle déja d'une nouvelle Franc Québécois et une militaire pour servir le Québec. Quand j'ai visiter le Québec j'ai trouver beaucoup d'hommes aggressif, protective du Québec et obseder par la notion de proteger leur pays.
I hope they do learn to embrace tradition once again, there was a time Québec was the most traditional place in North-America. However, with the new Bishop in that corner, with new priests arriving from Franco-Afrique et I think the Philippines, and with an upsurge in new Filippinos and Filippinas arriving to marry Québec people and become French, I think things are changing in that corner of Canada.
Add to this, the fact that the Maritimes is being colonized by France, and northern-Ontarians, and I think the genetic and cultural map of the region will be different in af ew years.
So I do agree and understand your view about Québecoises, they can truly kind and beautiful (those of my generation), but they could stand to learn a little more traditionalism. They are far more traditional than in other parts of Canada, but we'll see if they'll go back to their roots or fall apart like the rest of Canada has.
Myst in '93 was my last gaming adventuring, not faulting the gamers but me, I find the real world more entertaining as well as curiouser and stranger.
Otium & negotium , both good, necessary and each adds spice to the other. I'm at a point in life where I've far more otium than negotium but I'm not complaining, mind you.
Yep, fight the good fight but build a strong cadre. Lot of monsters in this real world that need slaying or at very least, keeping at bay. Beaters, trackers, shield maids and/or men , all increase the likelihood of a successful hunt or battle.
“I hold converse with myself and with my books. 'Tis a genuine and honest life; such leisure is delicious and honourable, and one might say that it is much more attractive than any business. The sea, the shore, these are the true secret haunts of the Muses, and how many inspirations they give me, how they prompt my musings! Do, I beg of you, as soon as ever you can, turn your back on the din, the idle chatter, and the frivolous occupations of Rome, and give yourself up to study or recreation.”
I wholly agree. So much of life is dodging the quicksand of time-sinks when not otherwise engaged in the necessities. I spent much of my life in the hospitality industry, waiting tables and setting up rooms and such, and I’ve had to learn to block out the world to think, and to do what was meaningful in the spaces available.
GamerGate billed itself as being about “ethics in games journalism,” so it did achieve, somewhat, that narrow goal, or at least call attention to it. That it didn’t go further is due to the assumptions of liberalism—gamers wanted to be left alone, and I get that. I also get that they didn’t want to take sides. But it’s impossible to be neutral these days. Maybe it’s always been impossible to be neutral.
As to the other points in your post, I agree. I was big into gaming until I hit 25 or so and then it just took way too much time. They’re fun no doubt—I fire up an old SNES game every one in a blue moon—but when I have free time there are about a dozen other things I’d rather do because they’re not only enjoyable, but confer real-world benefits.
>Encountering enemies doesn't mean you are going the right direction, it means you are surrounded by them
True, but these points are not contradictory. You can be surrounded by enemies on all sides and still not encounter any of them because you aren't moving at all or because you are falsely kneeling before them.
The "official" movement was derailed just as quickly as Occupy Wall Street and for the same reasons. Though, humans observing and investigating based on fact rather than having some e celeb dictate their programming scripts benefited immensely. Instead of only gaming and not giving a damn about Clown World, we realized Clown World was destroying what little good was left in the world starting with games, and so the new game became destroying them.
I guess I've been so absorbed in other things, RealWorld? that I missed gamergate. It sounds boring. "Fat and dull and sick" pretty well summarizes the fruits of progressivism.
Gamergate was ten years ago, but its ramifications live on. An entire online culture of irreverent meming was birthed into existence and flowed into a wider growth of the right wing internet.
You'll be fine if you don't bother. I'm hoping that at some point we grow out of the irony meme habit. Despite what people insist about their power I don't believe memes have any impact beyond the online world. Irony is tiring.
Since the destruction of games, I barely play them anymore. Even the few, generally old ones that weren't destroyed. And I still have a 7k gaming PC sitting in the other room that hasn't been turned on for years and might not even work anymore, but I don't care.
That being said, games still eclipse soyciety, and not by a small margin because soyciety fails by default at providing any value for men. And further, I have never been so immersed in utter fiction than I was when I was younger and did not have the option of disengaging from soyciety.
Being surrounded by the various fake people awarding side quests with negative rewards, such as the college meme and the marriage meme, alongside fake "friends" etc was the point at which I was most alone in life. Something that is exceedingly common for men, especially intelligent and self respecting men. Though many will not be as articulate or forthcoming, they will convey the same point in a much harsher and more concise way, at least if they aren't groomed into some subversive ideology instead, such as the one destroying games and other hobbies in the first place, or other forms of soy morality that take pride in being a cuck - serving your enemies at the expense of yourself.
Also, having a party member betray you there is rare and generally quite foreshadowed, while having one not betray you in Clown World elicits shock followed by apprehension... you're waiting for it.
Despite all that, near thirty year old games made ROMhacks still convey more value than soyciety.
Just imagine:
You fight your way through a fuckload of bosses, many of which are easy, but some, especially the last few are quite difficult.
After that, it gets dead silent and you can spend as much time as you need rearranging your equipment and party members, but whatever you have left is what you have.
As soon as you close the menu, the epic boss music starts several seconds before you can see anything and you know shit got real.
This is a ROMhack of a near 30 year old game with minimal story and no story in the post game. There isn't a single line of dialogue in there, yet the epicness eclipses anything Clown World can offer men.
Not only can I not think of a single thing in Clown World that can compete with that, but I still can't even when competing with speculative hypotheticals. After all, what would I do instead?
Go fight for western democratic values, such as sodomy and child molestation?
Create more slaves, who will be stolen from me and weaponized against me?
WageKEK for an objectively lower quality of life than I have now by skipping useless side quests and sustaining myself via passive income?
I could keep going, but suffice it to say every option is insultingly noncompetitive and far more often - actively counterproductive. Enough so that a dramatic interlude from something that isn't even at the front of the line in terms of difficult video game challenges can still trivially eclipse it.
The fact of the matter is that men need challenges that are worthy, difficult, but obtainable. Everything in Clown World is either trivial, impossible, or nonexistent, and unworthy in all cases. Video games can barely deliver this either, but they occasionally have their moments.
Which brings us around to other hobbies, specifically books. The soy morality has set in books even more so than games, and understandably so - games need a lot of DIE funding. Books can still receive it, but the production costs are much lower for obvious reasons. That's what got me writing - the reliable way of making anything worth reading was doing it myself. And... it's also why there is over a two year gap between the second and third books. It isn't that writing took that long, it was the sharp contrast between reliable friends and allies, beautiful women, and the absolute slop that is Clown World.
For while these e celebs might struggle hard with the redpill, I've very much embraced it. Some would call it blackpill, but there is no such thing. Facts don't care about your feelings - including the feelings of your reaction. And the facts are something like that shouldn't be relegated to the highest of high fantasies, yet it is.
Enough so that some guy called it "unrealistic" because the protagonist team isn't constantly subverting and backstabbing each other like westerners or honorary jews (he is Ukrainian, so it's a lack of inclusivity at work, also I repeat myself). Enough so that the same guy got legitimately angry that the women aren't disloyal whores only good for feeding and seeding (again, Ukraine). Enough so he was pissed enough to quit reading because these so called genius elites of Clown World were made to look like dysfunctional retards by a world in which random people walking down the street have IQs around 160-180, and the powerful beings making any forms of decision are several times higher than that, such that there is an infinitely greater difference between them and an Earth human than there is between an Earth human and a monkey (who is also not ashamed of being a monkey).
Instead, he preferred cultivator slop, meaning worlds that thought it was a good idea to give these foreign occupying conquerors along with the soycattle superpowers, and the resulting world made Clown World look sane by contrast.
Basically, he couldn't imagine a solution even in fiction and viewed being surrounded by enemies, especially those who claimed they were not as normal. Which would be blackpilled if such a thing existed.
I understand your sentiments but I don’t share them and don’t encourage them myself. I have a job worth having, duties to others worth sacrificing for, and as for women worth loving, I’m the father of two daughters. I have a wife and a mother, not to mention my father. I have students and friends. I have subscribers and my community of fellow writers. None of these relationships is an accident. All of them came about and are maintained through effort and self-denial. For my part I might have given up hope if I thought of things as you see them, but I know that beyond my own mortal limitations there’s a world of transcendent goodness and beauty that touches our world in the places where we make space for it. There’s a reason hope is a virtue. If I lost all of those things I mentioned, I would still be able to say, “I was a man who dared to embrace what God sent me.”
Clown world isn’t real. It’s just a big mess sitting on top of a deeper truth. The antidote to doom is digging down and finding those things that are real, the things that matter. That’s really what I dislike about gamer culture, that it valorizes a synthetic version of everything worth pursuing, and tells men that their real purpose is to slay pixelated monsters for a treasure haul of dopamine.
Real life is hard. The temptation to rationalize away those difficulties in favor of hedonistic pursuits is always there and nothing makes it easier than our neoliberal managerial order. The biggest joke clownworld plays on us is the running gag that it’s invincible. The truth is that all you need to do is turn away from it. Like all shows it requires attention. Read an old book, teach kids, perform meaningful labor with your hands, and waiting for the honking to stop.
Except that what I am doing is turning away from it, and what you are doing is empowering it. It gains legitimacy through participation and engagement.
The fact of the matter is that while video games and other escapism are fiction, Clown World is uninteresting fiction, and that's why it's losing.
All the subverted soy takes fail at producing escapism, and are also uninteresting fiction.
But removing all the better options won't make any men settle for the bad options.
This is why the tradcuck arguments fail, as following them results in (at best) pursuing synthetic versions of everything worth pursuing... and then not getting any rewards, even if you "succeed."
Those who do not believe in soy based morality will not be serving their enemies, and that means disengagement. Whatever it is called, and wherever they go after, it is only the results that matter.
Real connections - and not mere alliances by circumstance are the sole purview of the highest of high fantasies. I write about such things, but seeing as the only fiction is the solutions, I don't live in them.
The transhumanists who rule the technocracy want the useless eaters to be lost in drugs, porn and video games/VR. That, or kill you off, democide you. It doesn't seem like rebellion to do what they want.
Also, I can't fathom a worse fate, dying realizing you have never really lived.
That said, this is much the failure of men not providing worthy life experience for boys to become men.
What's my catchphrase?
"A commie taught a kid today, did you?"
In my experience, one need only show the bright ones what's been taken from them to make them want to take it back.
You got that right!
In response to all three of your excellent points.
1. Agreed. And part of the technocrats' reasoning is that people won't care as much about those who are destroyed when they are lost in drugs, porn, video games/VR. Some of it is that they won't see it, and some of it is that they won't be affected by what they do see.
2. Even worse, they may not even realize it (that they never really lived), if they are so far gone in their games. After all, people just fold over and disappear in the games.
3. As a Dad, I can see my kids in the two points that I made above. Yes, it is in large part to our (my wife and my) not providing sufficient life experiences for our kids.
You and your wife should not be too hard on yourselves. The whole thrust of liberal consumerism has been against you. Atomizing the individual and family has made us all easier prey.
We do what we can.
We have an 18 year old boy and a 15 year old girl. The boy is extremely thoughtful, probably like the good librarian's students. He will be able to pull himself out of it. (He inspired my Substack, because he does think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. )
It is my daughter that I was thinking of in my comments. She watches Youtube shorts, which go into the brain and bypass all thought. She can't answer the simplest of questions after watching them.
My students are a very mixed bunch in every sense. As with the parable of the sower, one scatters seeds where one may, and hopes they land on productive soil. I have also found that maturity comes to some later than others, and some who were terrors as freshmen and sophomores become quite different at 17 or so. Some figure it out in their twenties, some in prison. Some never do.
When I have a student who is bright but too invested in internet fluff I try to find some more in-depth version of something that has attracted their attention and steer them that way. I have kids who used to spend hours on Star Wars forums reading the Dune series (the physical books), for example. There's a reason it caught their eye; I help it reach their soul, if I can.
We need an education secretary with your philosophy.
I doubt I'm suited for high office. For some reason people think I'm extreme.
Wonderful to see someone swim comfortably in the Classics. Aeneas: he was a survivor—his story is part of our story—confirming what Conrad said of Jim, “He was one of us!”
Amazing piece: real, USEFUL depth with a light touch.
This is such a thoughtful (and spot-on) way of looking at gaming.
It makes so much sense—video games appeal to people (young men in particular) precisely because they offer what is so lacking in their real life: challenging yet achievable goals which result in measurable rewards.
I agree with you that people who enjoy video games are often using skills and energy that could be better spent on 'real-life' pursuits with tangible benefits. It's a shame these things are so addictive—it's not easy to make the switch to slow, difficult work and delayed gratification when the alternative seems so much more fun.
The addiction is the point, I think. It's part of the wider trend I wrote about near the end, rentier capitalism and an entire economy focused on extraction rather than production.
Definitely! And "cultivated leisure" is a great way of putting it—as you point out, it capitalizes on the innate desire for leisure while preventing any positive products that might come from it.
It is, as you say, a method of control, probably 'necessitated' by the modern increase in available free time. Addictive, unproductive hobbies weren't necessary back when people spent their entire lives working. Now, the masses need to be placated somehow...
It's a shame.
Nice!
This is my favorite of your pieces to date, but I can't find the words to say why. I haven't played a video game in over a decade (so GamerGate to me is akin to a footnote in a history textbook), but something about the description of venturing out to encounter friends (rather than just enemies) really resonates.
So since I'm mostly at a loss for words, I'll just say "thanks".
Thank you very much. I hope your venturing forth goes well.
Funny, I had my son in mind as I read, but I suppose I do have more venturing of my own to do! Have to set a good example, after all.
That's pretty much the reason why I write (well that, and the same subversion also destroying books). The notion that friends and allies can exist as well as enemies is the highest of high fantasies.
https://shinichihaku.substack.com/p/clown-world-wants-your-soul
Excellently put. Videogames aren't bad in of themselves. Shit, I've been playing a lot of Fortnite with my wife and kid, but they should not become a substitute for life, identity, and personality.
There's nothing inherently wrong with drinking alcohol. If one is drinking in moderation with friends, that's probably healthy. If one is drinking alone for hours in the dark, probably not. I'd say you could apply the same standard to video games.
Games have been a cultural artifact close ot being on par with movies and television, and Roger Ebert was entirely wrong when he said they could never be an art form. They also are far less easy to control, especially in an open world model. Whether it's kidnapping a suffregette and feeding her to a bear in RDR2 or being a psychopath in the dialog tree in the Fallout series, it's easy and fun to be transsgressive, and that's part of the fun. Even if you don't decide to not be a psycho, the entire fact you CAN creates the immersion.
This sort of open world gaming is getting quickly sterilized, and often games are more like 20 hour movies than interctive experiences. While this has been around a while, it's going to become more pronounced as gaming companies desperately try to ensure gamers get the "right" views from their story.
Luckily, there's an ongoing massacre in AAA gaming, as the budget of these games have become unwieldy and the companies continuously destroy goodwill with customers from micro-transactions and hostile social media posts. We're probably going to see more niche games and low to mid budget games that break out due to a smaller team of talented devs. You simply can not make a 400 million dollar game built over ten years. It's completely unsustainable. Likely, this will kill woke before activism unless Steam aggressively puts its thumb on the scale to mandate it.
I suspect the same thing will happen with movies, for the same reason.
The desire to act out transgressive fantasies strikes me as pretty immature.
But feeding a suffragette to a bear sounds based. And apparently women LIKE bears, nowadays...
I mostly agree with what you say. My main disagreement is on your pushing of 'personal improvement' and ignoring the potential of gaming for recruitment. It's a bit late in the game to think that learning Greek is going to help in what's coming. Hit the gym. Learn leadership principles. Spread the fire.
This last is where gaming is a godsend for us. It's where all the young men go. Young men that are already part way in our direction, simply by trying to turn off RL society while looking for something challenging. Besides doing this myself for many years now, I see others spreading the word in open chat, in forums, and in podcasts.
It's true that we don't need to waste our time on a hobby like this, but it's also true that we can't afford to abandon the most fertile ground for reaching directionless young men to our enemies. Our enemies control virtually all other aspects of young men's lives, from the "education" system to Hollywood to HR departments. Maybe we shouldn't just give up this one last place we can reach young men simply so we can sequester ourselves in a monastery to an even greater degree than we already are.
"Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance, they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude."
-Tacitus
So I hear this a lot, and my response is always, “reach them to what end?” To what goal are we to harness all of this young male energy? What’s the final point, the vision?
Learning Greek isn’t some bonus adjunct to hitting the gym. It’s what you’re training to preserve, or more realistically, to resurrect. It’s our culture that was taken from us and it’s our culture we have to fight to get back. If it comes to pass that things fall apart and have to be rebuilt then where else will we turn for that wisdom, Mario Brothers? Obviously I use Greek here as a shorthand for broader traditional cultural awareness, but you get the point.
As I said, games aren’t inherently bad. But they are a starting point- milk, not solid food. There’s no reason to abandon them but there’s also no reason to park a generation of men there because the liberals and leftists run things.
And to the latter I say, so what? I come from a line of people who preferred to be driven from their burning homes rather than change their beliefs, who crossed an ocean and made farmland out of swamps. Before them were crusaders and legionaries, Germanic tribesmen and Vikings. Everyone on the right runs on and on about warrior this and warrior that but our instinct seems to be to flee from HR ladies like they’re Grendel’s mother.
I quoted Tacitus in my last essay, that same passage. The only reason the Romans gave the Britons togas and baths was because the Xbox and iPhone hadn’t been invented. They took their traditions from them just like our neoliberal colonizers would take ours.
Greek isn’t a luxury item, it’s a birthright. Take it.
Some consider The Iliad as one of the two (the other being the Bible) foundational texts of our civilization.
Some consider The Iliad as one of the two (the other being the Bible) foundational texts of our civilization.
"To what goal are we to harness all of this young male energy?"
To teach them who to love, and who to hate. If they are able, they can figure out the rest from that. We have enough philosophers talking on the internet, we don't need more theorists.
One of the best essays I've seen in quite some time, honestly I always kind of considered Gamergate a bit of a failure as it failed to make any substantial changes. But as an awakening event maybe it was a success, one that awakened youths to the reality of what is being done to them.
I think that as more people disconnect from video-games, as men return to faith, to literature and to history (and it is happening), I think we'll see a greater shake-up, a greater number of demonstrations of anger and outrage.
In my view, Gen Y & Z are liable to to follow in the footsteps down the road of those from the Wars of Religions in France, in the 16th century or the generation between 1825 and 1848. They are going to have to if they wish to live, and I think it will happen as the more young men I talk to, the more I see a number of them pulling away from games, and see greater expressions of anger the more the months pass by. Same goes interestingly for women, as I'm seeing some women push for traditional values and ideas in places such as Japan, Africa, France and even Quebec interestingly enough.
Les femmes de Quebec sont très gauchiste et séculière. For them to embrace tradition would be a marvelous thing indeed.
Certaine le sont oui, cependant celles en dehors de Montreal ont tendance soit a devenirent séculières ou non. Ayant dit cela, j'en connais une de Montreal qui est pas mal gentille et traditionelle.
Toutefois, je pense qu'avec la chute des croyances séculières, les envahissement des Musulmans et le chute du Canada, le Québec vais falloir changer. RSPP le plus populaire chef dans ce coin, parle déja d'une nouvelle Franc Québécois et une militaire pour servir le Québec. Quand j'ai visiter le Québec j'ai trouver beaucoup d'hommes aggressif, protective du Québec et obseder par la notion de proteger leur pays.
I hope they do learn to embrace tradition once again, there was a time Québec was the most traditional place in North-America. However, with the new Bishop in that corner, with new priests arriving from Franco-Afrique et I think the Philippines, and with an upsurge in new Filippinos and Filippinas arriving to marry Québec people and become French, I think things are changing in that corner of Canada.
Add to this, the fact that the Maritimes is being colonized by France, and northern-Ontarians, and I think the genetic and cultural map of the region will be different in af ew years.
So I do agree and understand your view about Québecoises, they can truly kind and beautiful (those of my generation), but they could stand to learn a little more traditionalism. They are far more traditional than in other parts of Canada, but we'll see if they'll go back to their roots or fall apart like the rest of Canada has.
Myst in '93 was my last gaming adventuring, not faulting the gamers but me, I find the real world more entertaining as well as curiouser and stranger.
Otium & negotium , both good, necessary and each adds spice to the other. I'm at a point in life where I've far more otium than negotium but I'm not complaining, mind you.
Yep, fight the good fight but build a strong cadre. Lot of monsters in this real world that need slaying or at very least, keeping at bay. Beaters, trackers, shield maids and/or men , all increase the likelihood of a successful hunt or battle.
On purposeful, and creative, otium see the letters of the younger Pliny, passim (but e.g. 1.9, 7.6).
“I hold converse with myself and with my books. 'Tis a genuine and honest life; such leisure is delicious and honourable, and one might say that it is much more attractive than any business. The sea, the shore, these are the true secret haunts of the Muses, and how many inspirations they give me, how they prompt my musings! Do, I beg of you, as soon as ever you can, turn your back on the din, the idle chatter, and the frivolous occupations of Rome, and give yourself up to study or recreation.”
I wholly agree. So much of life is dodging the quicksand of time-sinks when not otherwise engaged in the necessities. I spent much of my life in the hospitality industry, waiting tables and setting up rooms and such, and I’ve had to learn to block out the world to think, and to do what was meaningful in the spaces available.
GamerGate billed itself as being about “ethics in games journalism,” so it did achieve, somewhat, that narrow goal, or at least call attention to it. That it didn’t go further is due to the assumptions of liberalism—gamers wanted to be left alone, and I get that. I also get that they didn’t want to take sides. But it’s impossible to be neutral these days. Maybe it’s always been impossible to be neutral.
As to the other points in your post, I agree. I was big into gaming until I hit 25 or so and then it just took way too much time. They’re fun no doubt—I fire up an old SNES game every one in a blue moon—but when I have free time there are about a dozen other things I’d rather do because they’re not only enjoyable, but confer real-world benefits.
That’s enough old man yelling at cloud for today.
Why sanskrit for programmers?
I was making a joking reference to their being Indians.
Oh haha, gotcha.
>Encountering enemies doesn't mean you are going the right direction, it means you are surrounded by them
True, but these points are not contradictory. You can be surrounded by enemies on all sides and still not encounter any of them because you aren't moving at all or because you are falsely kneeling before them.
See: https://shinichihaku.substack.com/p/clown-world-wants-your-soul
The "official" movement was derailed just as quickly as Occupy Wall Street and for the same reasons. Though, humans observing and investigating based on fact rather than having some e celeb dictate their programming scripts benefited immensely. Instead of only gaming and not giving a damn about Clown World, we realized Clown World was destroying what little good was left in the world starting with games, and so the new game became destroying them.
More later.
“Just order the TuffShed from their website, man.” Nah, I gotta build it myself, man...
Good call.
I guess I've been so absorbed in other things, RealWorld? that I missed gamergate. It sounds boring. "Fat and dull and sick" pretty well summarizes the fruits of progressivism.
Gamergate was ten years ago, but its ramifications live on. An entire online culture of irreverent meming was birthed into existence and flowed into a wider growth of the right wing internet.
Man, I gotta catch up!
You'll be fine if you don't bother. I'm hoping that at some point we grow out of the irony meme habit. Despite what people insist about their power I don't believe memes have any impact beyond the online world. Irony is tiring.
So,. I've read everything now.
A few points:
Since the destruction of games, I barely play them anymore. Even the few, generally old ones that weren't destroyed. And I still have a 7k gaming PC sitting in the other room that hasn't been turned on for years and might not even work anymore, but I don't care.
That being said, games still eclipse soyciety, and not by a small margin because soyciety fails by default at providing any value for men. And further, I have never been so immersed in utter fiction than I was when I was younger and did not have the option of disengaging from soyciety.
Being surrounded by the various fake people awarding side quests with negative rewards, such as the college meme and the marriage meme, alongside fake "friends" etc was the point at which I was most alone in life. Something that is exceedingly common for men, especially intelligent and self respecting men. Though many will not be as articulate or forthcoming, they will convey the same point in a much harsher and more concise way, at least if they aren't groomed into some subversive ideology instead, such as the one destroying games and other hobbies in the first place, or other forms of soy morality that take pride in being a cuck - serving your enemies at the expense of yourself.
Also, having a party member betray you there is rare and generally quite foreshadowed, while having one not betray you in Clown World elicits shock followed by apprehension... you're waiting for it.
Despite all that, near thirty year old games made ROMhacks still convey more value than soyciety.
Just imagine:
You fight your way through a fuckload of bosses, many of which are easy, but some, especially the last few are quite difficult.
After that, it gets dead silent and you can spend as much time as you need rearranging your equipment and party members, but whatever you have left is what you have.
As soon as you close the menu, the epic boss music starts several seconds before you can see anything and you know shit got real.
This is a ROMhack of a near 30 year old game with minimal story and no story in the post game. There isn't a single line of dialogue in there, yet the epicness eclipses anything Clown World can offer men.
Not only can I not think of a single thing in Clown World that can compete with that, but I still can't even when competing with speculative hypotheticals. After all, what would I do instead?
Go fight for western democratic values, such as sodomy and child molestation?
Create more slaves, who will be stolen from me and weaponized against me?
WageKEK for an objectively lower quality of life than I have now by skipping useless side quests and sustaining myself via passive income?
I could keep going, but suffice it to say every option is insultingly noncompetitive and far more often - actively counterproductive. Enough so that a dramatic interlude from something that isn't even at the front of the line in terms of difficult video game challenges can still trivially eclipse it.
The fact of the matter is that men need challenges that are worthy, difficult, but obtainable. Everything in Clown World is either trivial, impossible, or nonexistent, and unworthy in all cases. Video games can barely deliver this either, but they occasionally have their moments.
Which brings us around to other hobbies, specifically books. The soy morality has set in books even more so than games, and understandably so - games need a lot of DIE funding. Books can still receive it, but the production costs are much lower for obvious reasons. That's what got me writing - the reliable way of making anything worth reading was doing it myself. And... it's also why there is over a two year gap between the second and third books. It isn't that writing took that long, it was the sharp contrast between reliable friends and allies, beautiful women, and the absolute slop that is Clown World.
For while these e celebs might struggle hard with the redpill, I've very much embraced it. Some would call it blackpill, but there is no such thing. Facts don't care about your feelings - including the feelings of your reaction. And the facts are something like that shouldn't be relegated to the highest of high fantasies, yet it is.
Enough so that some guy called it "unrealistic" because the protagonist team isn't constantly subverting and backstabbing each other like westerners or honorary jews (he is Ukrainian, so it's a lack of inclusivity at work, also I repeat myself). Enough so that the same guy got legitimately angry that the women aren't disloyal whores only good for feeding and seeding (again, Ukraine). Enough so he was pissed enough to quit reading because these so called genius elites of Clown World were made to look like dysfunctional retards by a world in which random people walking down the street have IQs around 160-180, and the powerful beings making any forms of decision are several times higher than that, such that there is an infinitely greater difference between them and an Earth human than there is between an Earth human and a monkey (who is also not ashamed of being a monkey).
Instead, he preferred cultivator slop, meaning worlds that thought it was a good idea to give these foreign occupying conquerors along with the soycattle superpowers, and the resulting world made Clown World look sane by contrast.
Basically, he couldn't imagine a solution even in fiction and viewed being surrounded by enemies, especially those who claimed they were not as normal. Which would be blackpilled if such a thing existed.
But women worth loving haven't been invented yet.
I understand your sentiments but I don’t share them and don’t encourage them myself. I have a job worth having, duties to others worth sacrificing for, and as for women worth loving, I’m the father of two daughters. I have a wife and a mother, not to mention my father. I have students and friends. I have subscribers and my community of fellow writers. None of these relationships is an accident. All of them came about and are maintained through effort and self-denial. For my part I might have given up hope if I thought of things as you see them, but I know that beyond my own mortal limitations there’s a world of transcendent goodness and beauty that touches our world in the places where we make space for it. There’s a reason hope is a virtue. If I lost all of those things I mentioned, I would still be able to say, “I was a man who dared to embrace what God sent me.”
Clown world isn’t real. It’s just a big mess sitting on top of a deeper truth. The antidote to doom is digging down and finding those things that are real, the things that matter. That’s really what I dislike about gamer culture, that it valorizes a synthetic version of everything worth pursuing, and tells men that their real purpose is to slay pixelated monsters for a treasure haul of dopamine.
Real life is hard. The temptation to rationalize away those difficulties in favor of hedonistic pursuits is always there and nothing makes it easier than our neoliberal managerial order. The biggest joke clownworld plays on us is the running gag that it’s invincible. The truth is that all you need to do is turn away from it. Like all shows it requires attention. Read an old book, teach kids, perform meaningful labor with your hands, and waiting for the honking to stop.
Except that what I am doing is turning away from it, and what you are doing is empowering it. It gains legitimacy through participation and engagement.
The fact of the matter is that while video games and other escapism are fiction, Clown World is uninteresting fiction, and that's why it's losing.
All the subverted soy takes fail at producing escapism, and are also uninteresting fiction.
But removing all the better options won't make any men settle for the bad options.
This is why the tradcuck arguments fail, as following them results in (at best) pursuing synthetic versions of everything worth pursuing... and then not getting any rewards, even if you "succeed."
Those who do not believe in soy based morality will not be serving their enemies, and that means disengagement. Whatever it is called, and wherever they go after, it is only the results that matter.
Real connections - and not mere alliances by circumstance are the sole purview of the highest of high fantasies. I write about such things, but seeing as the only fiction is the solutions, I don't live in them.